Agta - Orientation

Identification.
The Agta consist of eight ethnolinguistic groups, numbering in total
about 7,000 people. They are nomadic hunter-gatherers scattered widely
over several thousand square kilometers of dense rain forest in eastern
Luzon in the Philippines. They appear phenotypically different from
other Filipinos because of their Negroid features: dark skin, kinky
hair, and small size. The height and weight averages for men are 153
centimeters (60 inches) and 45 kilograms (99 pounds). Women's
averages are 144 centimeters (56 inches) and 38 kilograms (84 pounds).
They are generally referred to as "Negritos."

Location.
The Agta groups are located all along the eastern side of Luzon Island
between 14° and 19° N and 121° and 123° E in
the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Aurora, Quirino, Quezon, Camarines
Norte, and Camarines Sur. In the previous century this whole area was at
least 90 percent covered by dipterocarp tropical lowland forest. By the
1980s the area covered by primary forest was about 40 percent, with
another 20 percent covered by secondary forest. The rest of the area was
(in the early 1980s) grassland (about 13 percent), brushland (11
percent), or farms (16 percent). The fast-accelerating deforestation in
recent years is the result of commercial logging and the high influx of
colonist farmers from other areas of Luzon. The area is classed as true
rain forest, with an average yearly rainfall of from 361.8 centimeters
per year in the deforested flatlands, to 712.5 centimeters per year in
the mountainous forests. Mean annual temperature is 26° C. Mean
relative humidity is 87 percent. There is no pronounced dry season.

Demography.
In the 700-square-kilometer Casiguran area of northern Aurora Province,
in 1900, the non-Agta farmers numbered 2,067 and the Casiguran Agta
numbered 1,000. By 1984 the Casiguran Agta population had declined to
only 609 and the non-Agta peoples numbered 35,000. Thus, the Agta
population density in 1984 was one Agta per square kilometer, but the
overall population density was 59 persons per square kilometer. The Agta
are suffering such a severe population decline not as the result of
out-migration or a low birth rate, but solely because of an
exceptionally high death rate. (For the rest of this essay, the
numerical figures refer to the Casiguran Agta population of northern
Aurora; these figures may be accepted as roughly general for most other
Agta groups.) The Agta crude death rate (45/1,000 per year) is higher
than their crude birth rate (43/1,000 per year). Average Agta life
expectancy at birth is only 21.5 years. The infant mortality rate is 342
(per 1,000 live births), and 49 percent of the children die before the
age of 15. The total fertility rate is high, with women who live to the
age of 45 having an average of 6.3 live births each. What are the causes
of the high Agta death rates? The main killer is disease, with 80
percent of the deaths attributed to that cause. The biggest killer
disease is tuberculosis (12 percent of the adult deaths), followed by
pneumonia and gastrointestinal illnesses. Five percent of the adult
deaths are from leprosy. The morbidity of the population is high as
well, with Agta suffering chronically from malnutrition, malaria,
intestinal parasites, alcoholism, and unsanitary living conditions.
Homicide is frequent; 21 percent of the adult males die from that cause.
The homicide rate is one of the highest on record for any population
(326/100,000 per year). Twelve percent of the female deaths result from
complications from childbirth. Suicide is extremely rare, and the Agta
do not practice infanticide. Three percent of the deaths are from
accidents.

Linguistic Affiliation.
The Agta groups speak eight distinct languages that, like those of
their non-Negrito neighbors, belong to the Austronesian Language Family.
Most of these Agta languages are unintelligible to their agricultural
neighbors; thus they are not simply dialects of those neighbors'
languages, as has frequently been suggested, but separate languages.